Video Game / Gensou Shoujo Taisen

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Gensou Shoujo Taisen ("Fantasy Maiden Wars") is a Touhoudoujin game series in the spirit of the popular Super Robot Wars games, created by Sanbondo. The game is divided into four parts (three of which have been released so far), and loosely retells the story of every Touhou game from the 6th through the 12th, while attempting to create a more unified story between all of them.

The first part, Kou (Scarlet), retells the story of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil and has been translated into English by Deranged. The patch can be found here. The second part, You (Mystic), combines Mountain of Faith and Perfect Cherry Blossom, and the third part, Ei (Eternal), combines Imperishable Night with Subterranean Animism.

This series contains examples of:

Background Music Override: Like in SRW, bosses will always have their theme play during battle and certain stages play special music that continues over the regular battles. Also, certain attacks such as Reimu's Fantasy Seal or Marisa's Master Spark have their own themes that play over even boss themes.

Big Damn Heroes: Prevalent all throughout the games. In particular, the Scarlet Devil Mansion's inhabitants tend to show up as reinforcements during climactic battles. In Kou, Sakuya appears to assist you on Remila's orders when fighting Flan. In You, Patchouli and Koakuma show up to lend their aid against Sanae and in Ei, Remilia flies in to save Sakuya when fighting Eirin.)

Bittersweet Ending: How Ei ends. The heroines barely manage to stop a berserk Utsuho from razing the surface. However, the one responsible for the crisis in the first place is still unknown ( Yuuka knows, but she's not willing to share aside from hints). In addition, Koishi's memory appears to be getting worse, to the point that she doesn't know how to get home anymore.

Bragging Rights Reward: Beating Yorihime in stage 49 gives you a "Lunar Magatama", which does nothing except say that you beat Yorihime in stage 49.

Broad Strokes: In general, the games stick to the general story of the source material, but with some liberties taken. From the start, characters that don't appear in the game the story arc is based on appear and team up with the heroines (which is a divergence in itself).

Kou retells the story of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, but there's a running sideplot of Youkai Mountain dealing with the Moriya Shrine and its residents arriving, with Sanae showing up during the incident to judge Reimu for herself. Youmu also shows up looking for ways to make cherry trees bloom, foreshadowing Yuyuko's plan to revive Saigyou Ayakashi in Perfect Cherry Blossom.

The first half of You is a retelling of Mountain of Faith, a level right afterward is based on Immaterial and Missing Power, and the second half retells Perfect Cherry Blossom. Shou and Nazrin appear in the second half and join the heroines and Marisa ends up accidentally getting sidetracked to the Former Hell. The two plot points converge in The Stinger when Marisa leads Shou and Nazrin to the Palanquin Ship and they free it.

Though the divergences get broader in Ei, the first half is based on Imperishable Night, the second half is based on Subterranean Animism and in between is a small story arc based on Silent Sinner in Blue. Most significantly, The Palanquin Ship is used in this game as a battleship unit with the Buddhist group operating it. The heroines are well aware of their goal to free Byakuren. Nue shows up, bitter that she was left behind by Murasa and shows up from time to time to cause trouble. And the Silent Sinner in Blue arc doesn't have the Gambit Pileup that was in the original story and instead, the heroines are asked to deliver a letter to the Watatsuki sisters by Eirin, though things are complicated by the letter being misplaced.

Combining Mecha: After being defeated individually, the Prismriver Sisters huddle together to become a single unit, which is treated mechanically like an SRW Combining Mecha. This results in the Three Fairies of Light deciding to "combine" as well... in a scene which parodies Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.

Continuity Porn: The game blends the story of the official Touhou games, including the PC-98 continuity, into one.

Cooldown Hug: Happens twice in Ei, first with Remilia hugging a berserk Flandre in a special attack-animation cutscene, and later with Rin and Utsuho, although the latter only partially succeeded because Utsuho's power was no longer under her control even after she regained awareness.

Cultural Translation: The subtitles "Kou", "You", and "Ei" come from "Koumakyou", "Youyoumu", and "Eiyashou", the Japanese parts of the first three Windows Touhou games' names (which are relatively obscure in the English fanbase). The Fan Translation renders them as "E" and "P", from their English portions, "Embodiment of Scarlet Devil" and "Perfect Cherry Blossom", which more closely fits the naming scheme of the Super Robot Wars games.

Diabolus ex Machina: After taking down Utsuho and talking her out of her plans of world domination Shiro shows up with a swarm of Kedama, and attack Utsuho in order to get rid of the Yatagarasu. This causes Utsuho to lose control of her powers, threaten a nuclear meltdown.

Final Boss Preview: You meet Flandre as an NPC as Marisa. You can beat her, if you can take her down with Marisa only. You also meet a pre-powered up version of Utsuho as one of the weakest bosses in the game, to foreshadow her character development.

Leitmotif: Everyone has at least one. Sakuya, Nitori, Youmu, Aya and Sanae have different ones both as an enemy and as an ally. The three fairies gain one for their Combination Attack and another one in Combining Mecha form.

Hopeless Boss Fight: The fight with Yorihime in Ei, if you choose the dialog options that let her use her full power on you. She has enough evasion to dodge anything but an Always Accurate Attack, and can attack more than once per turn with attacks that exceed the game's accuracy limit. However, you can time out all her cards and beat the mission by running away.

Lord British Postulate: In Kou, it's possible to defeat Sakuya in chapter 5 and Sanae in chapter 7 if you can reduce their HP to zero in one hit without going below a certain threshold beforehand. They'll still escape as per the story, but you'll get items and EXP and such for a boss kill.

In Ei, when you fight the protagonist you didn't choose, your objective is only to shoot down Reimu/Marisa; however, the more powerful characters such as Yukari and Yuyuko/Yuuka and Mima will sit in the back and not engage your units unless you pursue them.

When Lily White joins your team she has only a single attack, low stats, and is practically an Emotionless Girl; she powers up (and brightens up) significantly once you get closer to where all the Spring was taken.

Both Reimu and Marisa change sprites and movesets (and theme music) partway through Ei, just in time to use them against each other in the obligatory Let's You and Him Fight from Imperishable Night stage 4.

Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: In You, the heroes are gathering allies to help them against the forces of Yokai mountain, Reimu and Keine asking Mokou, and Marisa and Alice asking the Scarlet Devil Mansion. However, the tengu tailing them decide to attack and make the respective people change their minds.

In contrast Easy and Normal compare themselves to more modern games, Alpha and Alpha Gaiden.

Readings Are Off the Scale: Any enemy unit whose current HP is exceeds 10,000 will have both their current and max HP values replaced with question marks. Their health bar still shows the percentage of their health, though.

Some of the older Super Robot Wars game did that too so it might have been done on purpose.

This happens in the plot as well when Keine measures Yorihime's spiritual energy after letting her use all her power.

Recycled In Space: Lampshaded in Ei, chapter 48, which is titled "Gensou IN SPACE". Naturally this chapter is when the party visits the moon.

Secret Level: Completing Kou with both Reimu and Marisa's routes unlocks Sakuya's route, which consists of four levels and takes place after the main story.

Shout-Out: Tons, to Super Robot Wars itself as well as the countless mecha shows featured in the series, ranging from character dialogue, attack animations, to even musical nods.

The Stinger: You has one where Marisa helps Nazrin and Shou find the Palanquin Ship.

Suspiciously Similar Song: Much of the game's soundtrack consists of Touhou tracks mixed to sound like particular SRW or mecha anime tracks.

Unwitting Instigator of Doom: In Ei, Reisen II (named Rabbit right now) meets up with Reisen first instead of Reimu like in S Si B, and attempts to get on her good side by claiming she's a fellow fugitive with lunar emissaries pursuing her. Instead, this freaks Reisen out, causing her to flee to Eirin and Kaguya to report to them, which leads into the IN part of the story.

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